London Banter - View Single Post

[email protected] · May 17th 09, 12:34 AM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(Barry Salter) wrote:

Neil Williams wrote:
On Fri, 15 May 2009 11:53:26 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

That reminds me - I stayed at a foreign hotel about a month ago and
they insisted on making a 10-euro test-payment using their C&P
machine. This was for "extras" and in fact I didn't incur any. When
I checked out there was some confusion about whether or not the
10-euros needed to be explicitly refunded, or whether it just
"expired" in some strange way. I must check my statements...

I've seen that - it seems that while taking the "swipe"
(pre-authorisation for things like the minibar) some badly-designed
terminals show it as an actual purchase with an amount and require a
PIN, but it isn't an actual transaction and doesn't go on the
statement.

On the occasions I've been asked to provide a card for
authorisation in a hotel, it's generally said "Pre-Auth" (or
similar) on the display on the PED.

On a similar subject, I went into a branch of NatWest last week to
pay a cheque in, over the counter, and was asked to use Chip & PIN
to confirm the deposit. That's a new one on me.

I generally pay cheques in at cash machines these days.

--
Colin Rosenstiel